Runaway: Explosion at T2 Laboratories

On December 19, 2007, a runaway chemical reaction during the production of a gasoline additive destroyed T2 Laboratories in Jacksonville, Florida, killing four people and injuring 32 others. The blast, equivalent to about 1400 pounds of TNT, damaged buildings and injured office workers hundreds of feet away.

[@acronus]

Is that a saying yet? "In a runaway reaction, the best reaction is to RUN AWAY"

[@theLuigiFan0007Productions]

I haven't heard that myself, but it really should be well known saying. That is one of the most important things to know about runaway reactions. If you can't get it under control and everything seems to be failing, RUN AWAY!

[@tetrabromobisphenol]

No, that usually gets more people killed. You want to try everything you can to arrest such a reaction or flare it off, not run away and hope for the best.

[@lanceedgin4393]

With nuclear reactors, yes.

[@RogerKeulen]

Your over reacting ;-)

[@A-Viking]

Yeah almost making it sound like the thing had a mind of its own like natural disaster as opposed to the old story of greedy/ignorant business not performing adequit maintainance. More a case of Runaway greed/ignorance vs worker safety in business practises. Maybe accumilated birdpoop nuggets in the steam release pipe caused a blockade, that however would have taken a long time to build up and should cause noticable interruptions in the cooling for some time prior to the eventual failure.

[@twiggs24]

This has to be one of the most interesting and educational youtube channels.

[@rafalswiniarski3866]

ahem mark rober simplehistory oversimplified extrahistory

[@jameswadewade3434]

James wade34 call

[@tedubadu2536]

​@@rafalswiniarski3866 Ahem you're ugly and those channels aren't interesting. this one is.

[@jhonny94bravo58]

Try having a dad that used to cook resin before computers took over. He saved the city once or twice.

[@Syclone0044]

Come back and check out their latest videos! The animation is so realistic it makes this one look laughable!

[@DugrozReports]

I'd like to hear this narrator giving commentary on everyday problems, like a guy accidentally spraying water all over his bathroom by fixing a piper poorly.

[@DynamicUnreality]

"But what the homeowner didnt realize was that a mechanical failure in the main water shutoff valve meant there was still pressure in the line, and any attempt to uncouple the two pipes under the sink would result in a massive eruption of water. The resulting flood damaged floors, furnishings and even walls up to 10 meters away."

[@DugrozReports]

@@DynamicUnreality Ha!

[@Sylvite.]

@@DynamicUnreality I could just hear that in my head

[@Poodlefang89]

@@DynamicUnreality that is literally the best comment I’ve ever read on KZbin.

[@PheePeaAnimation]

@@DynamicUnreality this video is so sad but im laughing so hard at this comment

[@hotwheels9963]

I work at a chemical plant. I’m a reactor operator. We run 3 3500gal reactors at almost 900psi routinely. Our high pressure interlock is 960psi and our high temp interlock is 95°c. We have 4 safety systems we can go to after operator controls are deemed ineffective. Rupture disk, catch tanks, valves to catch tanks, relief valves, E vents, E stops flares. It’s a very complex system but this tragedy was avoidable. None of these companies ever go above and beyond on safety, that cost money. Although I do feel my plant has put an honest attempt into it. Stay safe blue collar men and women.

[@mikefromwa]

Yep, like I mentioned above who designs something like this without a backup cooling system? It's unforgivable on several levels.

[@Ferdrew-rp5ey]

Sounds great Engineering dd !! 💪💯 Keep safe !! 😊😊

[@whiteru55ian33]

I work at a plant as well. and I don’t think we’ve ever checked if everything works before making a batch. The only thing we check before making a batch is that we have all of our raw materials…we find out shit breaks WHEN the shit breaks. I’ve only been compounding 5 months and I’ve never checked if my cooling systems work s prior a batch. I will NOW tho I’m pretty sure our only cooling method is city water as well.

[@03056932]

​@@whiteru55ian33stay safe please

[@Sovereign_Citizen_LEO]

I love these videos not primarily for shock value but because these investigations teach us about chemicals, chemistry, engineering, and process technologies.

[@tashkiira7838]

The CSB and similar organizations are all about the 'how NOT to do this' thing. Safety rules are written in blood, and most such groups would REALLY like to dilute that as much as possible.

[@stevenbaer9061]

And also the frailties and assumptions we probably would be guilty of. These really show you how comprehensive your thinking has to be.

[@sp34277]

@@tashkiira7838 we seem to only learn from mistakes, we can't prevent them from reoccurring without these

[@thewafflehouse841]

And what happens when you ignore protocall or there is inadequate safety standards sometimes its just damaged buildings so just money lost but in far to many cases it results in injury's ranging from mild to life threatening, and death safty standards are written in blood there there for a reason safty can be expansive but accidents are business destroying expenive

[@gamingwithgordonashley3558]

Unfortunatly they also often demonstrate a complete lack of adequate laws and/or punishments for the people responsible in the United States. An ignored safety standard that results in death in canada results in, at least a few of the following; a fine in the range of 1-5 million dollars (payable personally by the person in charge), another larger fine to the company its self, jail time, a class action lawsuit, criminal investigation, and the company being shut down, at least for a time. Its not fool proof for the workers, but these are at least more motivating factors for the sociopaths that run most companies to follow the rules and care for there employees.

[@annadoesroblox6205]

Exothermic reactions need to have backup cooling systems. It’s a must. Uncontrolled positive feedback gets very dangerous very quickly. Also with uncontrolled positive feedback can cause very abrupt pressure rise and clearly needs a better pressure relief pipe, if it exploded within 10 seconds of the disc rupturing, it clearly wasn’t sufficient.

[@spvillano]

Two words. Complacency kills. The processes weren't properly analyzed, failure modes not mapped, proper reactor emergency responses not documented and trained on and the design was horrendously deficient. As you said, an emergency cooling system and adequate venting system could've prevented the accident. Honestly, it was a miracle more weren't killed and injured from such a blast.

[@pizzablender]

@@spvillano This kind of process is best done in continuous flow system. Not so much material in a single vat, so it is easier to cool or won't explode at all. And it it goes wrong, there is less material, so a much smaller explosion.

[@mnxs]

@@pizzablender all true, although as I understand it, not all processes can be done that way.

[@davelowets]

@@mnxs Correct...

[@neighbor9672]

Right? The whole system was designed more like a firework than a safe reactor!

[@jmowreader9555]

Who was the idiot that approved a reactor with ONE coolant line when the state licensed the plant? Never mind they should have built multiple small reaction vessels, there should have been at least three different feed pipes coming into the cooling jackets - PREFERABLY not being fed from the same source!

[@OAleathaO]

+jmowreader --> The other question that doesn't seem to be covered in this video is why did the blowout pressure release "rupture disc" mentioned at 3:24 blow so late? Was the disc that was installed the wrong one with an incorrect pressure for the circumstances or did it fail in some manner?

[@tetrabromobisphenol]

This is what happens once regulatory agencies become "business friendly", they let people get away with cheesy designs so that they can save money.

[@bjtaudio]

What amazed me is the blast managed to breech the control room and kill the two men inside, I bet the staff had no idea just how powerful the blast would be if the tank ruptured, they all do now, well the staff still alive and won't make that mistake again.

[@obfuscated3090]

Industry can buy state legislators, especially in backwaters where the locals are ignorant simpletons who won't notice...until they burn. Americans are not educated enough or smart enough to care about industrial safety. That leaves a lot of room to get away with inadequate designs, shit maintenance, and general corruption.

[@thegreatga]

It's very common for a reactor to only have 1 source of cooling. I know, sounds stupid right.

[@tomoakhill8825]

I worked for six years as a synthetic organic chemist. In a laboratory, each day, I mixed two chemicals in a 20 oz flask with a solvent and stirred them overnight, to react together to form a new chemical. If that chemical was determined to be of interest, we sent my process to another lab in a distant city, where experts in scaling up from 20 oz to 1,500,000 oz would design a new reaction. The difficulty is that the larger amount sheds heat 1/100th as fast as the smaller.

[@aarontooth]

That's a lot of stirring.

[@andrewl2787]

Your hands must be very strong

[@piercemcmurry7914]

@@aarontooth There is such thing as magnetic stirring, y’know?

[@CanularRadio]

Why can factories that create potentially dangerous things be allowed in the middle of inhabitants it should be put outside cities for safety. Like Lubrizol in France look it up.

[@stevenmallory289]

@@CanularRadio the vast majority of the time they were outside the city limits, when they were built. It's just the city's grow and houses are built close to these chemical plant, much later on.

[@liquid49286]

the surveilance video was mind blowing. What a blast

[@Syclone0044]

liquid49286 I too found this incident bursting with intrigue. It's always good to expand one's knowledge.

[@busybeavergirl]

they even elevated the tank for maximum blast area coverage

[@marctronixx]

@@Syclone0044 Well played!!!

[@marctronixx]

Well played!!

[@silentype3008]

@@Syclone0044 That was a word play, right?

[@WackyBroProductions]

Where the heck is the redundancy.

[@phuturephunk]

WackyBroProductions Where the heck is the cooling capacity? I mean I could understand scaling up the process...a bit...but to go from 1 liter to 2500 gallons and then pedal to the metal with the same water jacket is lunacy.

[@simpsonfan13]

It would certainly have HELPED, but what really did them in is having a single fucking point of failure and no plan B. That had ONE pipe for water and no plan on what to do if it couldn't do it job. And tht's what happened. FFS if they attached a bunch of garden hoses in addition it would have been a safer design.

[@commodoresixfour7478]

@@simpsonfan13 Definitely! Maybe more emergency pressure relief also!

[@likeabunnie]

EXACTLY! I'm entirely unqualified in any type of engineering, but anything I do that could result in compromised safety if a failure occurred, I have a redundancy in place, too! And I'm not mixing explosive chemicals etc... It's horrible that a company allowed this to occur, yet it seems unsurprising that it did at some point, and I just... HOW COULD THEY NOT AT ALL FACTOR IN, "gee, if something goes wrong in the cooling process, we should have at least one backup plan so that this whole thing doesn't continue to heat up"... I just... It's mind boggling! And people died!

[@htomerif]

@TheBrodsterBoy unfortunately, no. The reaction heat generated scales with the diameter cubed, while the maximum cooling the jacket can provide only scales with the diameter squared. There is a vessel size at which no amount of cooling, even with mixing, would prevent it from thermal runaway. What they could have done, and what everyone else would do, is have a grid of cooling pipes running through the reactor, so regardless of the size scaling it would have the same cooling capacity per unit volume.

[@AloofOof]

that tiny pressure relief pipe looks inadequate for the task

[@KiloByte69]

That's what she said!

[@tetrabromobisphenol]

Indeed it was. They needed like a 6" burst disc and "blooey-line".

[@JeffDeWitt]

Either that or the rupture disk should have ruptured sooner.

[@bigredc222]

That was the first thing I though, the guy operating it on a daily bases knew it was dangerous, he had several close calls but continued to operate it, there are times when you have to stand up to your boss and say no, you won't do it, you may loose your job, but you'll be alive. I hope whatever assets that company had, were given to the injured people.

[@favrerules04]

ya think?

[@maxsteiner8268]

The reactor was talking to them during the earlier runs.. They should have listened.

[@Backyardmech1]

Besides an engineer allowing for such a reactor to be built without a more efficient means of cooling, or least a flare system for the excess hydrogen, it's amazing the amount of CCTV footage there was.

[@tashkiira7838]

It's Jacksonville. The city has had a crime problem for years, and they're only getting it sort of controlled now.

[@VictoriaPatricia]

@@tashkiira7838 A big city with crime problems???!!! Never heard that before!

[@tashkiira7838]

@@VictoriaPatricia Let me rephrase: Jacksonville has a crime problem that is disproportionately large considering the size of the city and the state it is in.

[@destroyerdragon2002]

Been a few years. Most likely an engineer designed it for a smaller volume of product. The management in all their intelligence probably voted to increase production rates ignoring the designed capacity of the tank.

[@WadcaWymiaru]

For what i see the problem was with total LACK of the safety valves...i would never allow pressure device without all valves to being sell.

[@funnymanatwork]

No one gonna acknowledge how perfectly the guy pronounced that chemical name?

[@noahater5785]

Exactly, if I was handed the script and had to say that absolute mouthful of a chemical name I’d be like “Wait, what even is this CURSED chemical that is an absolute mouthful??? I hate my job 🤦‍♂️”

[@henry8smallwood]

They had a pet dragon that ate sodium and farted hydrogen. What could go wrong?

[@greenyawgmoth]

Dragons are seriously misunderstood creatures!

[@alexanderbreitschaedel9070]

@Wagner PD I would say CnH2n+2 In your case I think it is CH4 and H2S and some other mean stuff. I also would recommend to try taco bell or beans

[@TheTrainChasingPoet1999]

Ah, ha ha ha!

[@WadcaWymiaru]

There WAS a "DRAGON" experiment as "tickling tail of the dragon" ...

[@llary]

@@alexanderbreitschaedel9070 Taco Bell reaction is a lot more violent than any of the accidents on this channel.

[@sootikins]

Reactor for known exothermic process built with ONE source of cooling? WTF did they think would happen if power outage took down their CW pumps and/or caused drop in water pressure/flow from city mains? Always have min. 2 sources of cooling or other reaction stopper. Rupture disk & emerg vent line not sized to handle full potential gas volume from reaction runaway? Vents known flammable gas to atmosphere instead of flare? Double-WTF. smh... :-/

[@RogerKeulen]

@TheBrodsterBoy The vessel rupture.

[@herseem]

@TheBrodsterBoy Well, it was venting for 10 seconds and making a heck of a noise from the escaping fumes and the pressure clearly kept increasing resulting in the vessel exploding. So if your safety valve doesn't vent fast enough to actually reduce the pressure in emergency circumstances, I'd say that's pretty much the definition of undersized

[@Nash1a]

Hydrogen rises. Its the lightest gas there is. And any amount will explode if ignited. So I suspect a flare would have been allowed the gas to burn all the way back into the vessel itself. What I'm curious about is what exactly happened chemically to the reaction to cause the explosion 10 seconds after it began to vent. Did the sudden lowering of pressure change the dynamic? Did it allow what was left of the chemicals to react more quickly?

[@Nash1a]

@Nick and if they were never trained to analyze and understand the risks (i.e. the size of the crater they MIGHT leave if things went wrong) they might have chosen a higher pressure for that to break rather than a lower one.

[@THRASHMETALFUNRIFFS]

I'm surprised they didn't collect the hydrogen for another purpose?

[@FelonyVideos]

These guys were fully aware of the hazards of the reaction. What they weren't aware of was hazard mitigation and redundancy. They thought they had double redundancy with the water jacket and the pop off valve, but the reaction accelerated much faster than they ever envisioned. One always has to allow for multiple failures, and always design intrinsically safe whenever possible. This process could be made intrinsically safe by installation of a 6 inch pressure relief valve in the bottom of the tank that feeds into a 500 ft stainless steel pipe kept under vacuum. The sudden expansion would dramatically and instantly cool the process, with no environmental impact whatsoever. The process feedstock might even be recoverable to complete the process. Also, and most important of all, safety systems are useless if they cannot be regularly tested. It's nice to have a rupture disk, but that has to be third or fourth in the line of protection, because it can't be tested. And then there needs to be accommodation of rupture disk failure, as these were carcinogens.

[@davelowets]

Rupture disks can be tested... And then you replace it with one of the same.. 🤷🏻

[@FelonyVideos]

@@davelowets 😂

[@davelowets]

@@FelonyVideos Works just fine...

[@FelonyVideos]

@@davelowets Sure did!

[@davelowets]

@@FelonyVideos It DID do it's job.. The fault lies with something other than the disk itself..

[@Garganzuul]

Perhaps chem students should be taught how to make bombs, so they don't make them by accident.

[@josh6715]

Well there's the first problem computerised

[@MicahWeb]

Reactor Design is much more complicated than knowing how to make a bomb!

[@sylumgand]

@@MicahWeb And yet if these college graduates had been taught about how chemistry can easily make things go boom, this may have been avoided. I have no college degree in chemistry, but even i know pouring chemicals together that generate lots of heat inside a sealed pressure vessel will eventually go boom. I mean the fact that the owners thought it a great idea to use city water as a cooling solution for something involving sodium metal screams stupid to me. Those two things alone = explosion if they come in contact.

[@MicahWeb]

@@sylumgand Using water as a cooling agent is a common practice in chemical engineering, once you do a reactor design course then come back for a chat. All I am saying is making a bomb is easier than making a safe and functional chemical reactor! Students now days are taught about the effects of faulty reactor design.

[@mathewcherrystone9479]

@@sylumgand The biggest Problem in this system was that there was no redundancy whatsoever. Cooling should never rely on just one system there has to be at least one backup system that is independent from the other. Also the pressure release mechanism was inadequate for the size of the reactor and should have gone of far earlier. Both are the result of going from labratory scale direcly to industrial reactor scale, without any design changes. Well and regarding sodium and water. You better not take a look at fast breeder reactors... As long as the reactorvessel is desinged in a way that in case of a faliure the two do not mix there is no problem. This is all stuff that a process engineer does. You usually do not learn this as a chemistry student, but maybe as a chemical engineer. I don´t really know what they are doing. Sadly most reactions do require heat and pressure -that includes many exothermic reaction. Therefor you have no other choice than to pressurise the reactor. But if you do not take the necessary precautions it can easily go critical.

[@Coastie1548]

I remember being across the river from T2 and seeing an enormous fireball and hearing what sounded like a bomb going off. I almost thought the world was ending! The next day I went with my dad to help clean up the bus yard that was right next to the facility and was shocked at how much damage was done. We were picking up pieces of shrapnel for days. Scared me to death!

[@renneedwards9826]

Wow 😲😥

[@ElTurbinado]

Isn’t “almost thinking” something the same as not thinking it? Lol

[@rylewoodson7665]

I was at the gym on Alta Drive when it exploded. I thought 💭 it went off in the parking lot it was so loud and it finished breaking my already cracked windshield. I was almost a mile away too.

[@NeoFryBoy]

@@rylewoodson7665 Nah, man, that was me.

[@TheSiriusEnigma]

This is why it is important to learn from other people mistakes. You just can’t afford to just learn from your owns.

[@ToothyGus]

how does something so crude even get approved for construction?

[@Darkstalker212]

Money, money.. money!!..;)

[@angusmatheson8906]

.oversight regulatory of Lack

[@kevinburns8473]

Jacksonville isnt exactly known for safety

[@gorillaau]

The idea of going from a lab reactor that smaller than a home brew kit to 2500 gallons without intermediate design work staggers me. 250 gallon reactor would have been a good second step.

[@RobinTheBot]

It didn't. It was built without permits.

[@samiraperi467]

Scaled up too big too fast with lacking understanding of the process. Going from a 1-liter test reactor straight to *ten thousand fold* is ...not smart.

[@JohnDoe-zh6cp]

If they had done the necessary calculations and risk assessment and then actually implemented designs to mitigate potential failures it would have been fine to scale up from there.

[@stevenbaer9061]

@@JohnDoe-zh6cp Pretty massive 'if' in this instance wouldn't you say. It would seem that they did not do their due diligence with fatal consequences, may they rest in peace.

[@JohnDoe-zh6cp]

@@stevenbaer9061 That diligence is necessary in any case. I was just making the point that scaling up from that size was not the issue.

[@castanza128]

The part they didn't explain: This was all due to using city water. Anybody who has boiled city water knows that there are a lot of mineral salts left behind every time. I have a steamer humidifier that plugs up the same way. The "flakes" need to be cleaned out, and scraped off the heating element, or it will overheat and go into protection mode.

[@noahater5785]

Not to mention pipes can become clogged due to hard water

[@dakota9821]

@@noahater5785 That... That's what hard water is my friend. The "hardness" of water is based on how much calcium and magnesium is dissolved in it; Both of which cause buildup.

[@titaniumsandwedge]

This case is too stupid for words. In the real world, any design that could lead to an uncontrolled exothermic reaction have systems to prevent disasters. The final line of defense is the rupture disk. It is sized to vent a full blow runaway reaction. The first line of defense are duplicate cooling systems. How about turning on the cooling system before starting the batch to see if if works? There are countless computer programs that will determine if a runaway will occur with the reactor geometry and reaction kinetics.

[@johnballs1352]

This is the real world. Managers don't care

[@herseem]

And one of the cooling systems should have been a gravity-fed fail-safe system with an active valve keeping the water out, so that any interruption to the power supply would automatically cool it.

[@Dec38105]

union carbide have an exemplary record for this type of reactor model , leave it to the experts i say s/

[@3sierra15]

FWIW, I read that in 2008 a company attorney said that there was backup water available in an 8000-gallon tank.

[@macneoh7418]

All these things cost money 💰😡

[@eliza2070]

I’m a chemical engineering student and we just learned about runaway reactions. Very informative video

[@spacewolfjr]

I'm a run-away reaction and I just learned about chemical engineering students!

[@Johnny53kgb-nsa]

As a retired union industrial painter, I worked in numerous nasty chemical and petro companies over the year's. Most were old, their equipment, piping, valves, tanks, were very old. We would joke sometimes and say the only thing holding this place together was our paint, and maybe a little bailing wire and duct tape. Some of the places weren't too bad, but some really scared the s--- out of me just being there. I actually quit for a year once after being sent back down to DuPont in Rubbertown, Louisville KY. But, I needed the money, benefits, retirement, and went back. We called DuPont the Russian front. It was nasty, old, stunk. They would vent stuff out, and whew man, what a nasty smell. Some stuff was so dangerous, they had cameras surrounding a tank, watching it 24 hour's a day. It was some type of acid, if I remember I correctly, maybe HF acid, I'm not sure. Their safety guy told us, one drop of this on your arm, and it doesn't stop burning until it gets to bone marrow. I don't know if that's true, but it sure scared the hell out of us. I've painted high voltage steel tower's over 100' high while energized, and it didn't bother me like working in a chemical plant did. I hope damn politicians never cut the budget, or power, of this US Chemical board here. I'm not sure what type of enforcement they have, but I hope enough. Do you think, chemical companies have lobbyists in DC fighting against safety rules? I wouldn't doubt it one bit. It seems everybody has a lobbyist, donating to some damn crooked politician. Or, in order to dodge American safety laws, and the much higher wages, if like every industry, these chemical companies move overseas. Like the Bhopal disaster in India, I think over 3700 , yes hundred, were killed, and over a half million people injured. That's just unimaginable. These chemical companies have to be strictly governed, and constantly watched. I don't trust them to do what's right on their on. Great video. Thank you, John

[@Demcurls]

> one drop of this on your arm, and it doesn't stop burning until it gets to bone marrow. Sounds like HF. It doesn't "burn" through your arm per se, it will be absorbed by the skin, dissolve into your blood and react with the calcium in your bones.

[@Johnny53kgb-nsa]

@@Demcurls Yes, I believe your right. It was some very dangerous stuff. It's been year's ago. I didn't complain much, just done my job, but I sure didn't like chemical companies. Stinky stuff being vented, sometimes leaked out.

[@danielebrparish4271]

Phosphorus will do that and so will many other highly reactive chemicals. Magnesium that is used to make car engines lighter are a problem when a car catches fire because the melting magnesium will ignite any water that is poured on it by the fire department.

[@crazyscienceguy9933]

My business professor was one of the co-owners. He made the T2 labs a part of a weekly assignment where we learned how he and his co-owner managed to build the business from the ground up. He never even slightly hinted at what had happened to his friend (co-owner). Today was the day I found out. Amazing man. Even greater storyteller. Thank you for the teachings, Stephen. Rest in peace, Scott.

[@farhanatashiga3721]

He probably either deeply regretted what ended up happening or was completely in denial and shutting down the memories past the set up process.

[@PhillipRemaker]

I hope he warned against saving money in the business model by premarturely scaling up potentially hazardous processes. Business models tend to downplay safety concerns. It would be interesting to know how he factored insurance and safety into that model, since both are profit reducers if your model doesn't factor in extrinsic matters like safety.

[@crazyscienceguy9933]

@@AdirondackHomestead I’ve never heard a man speak about a friend the way Stephen spoke about Scott. A great business partner, and an even greater friend. They were doing this project for years. Pretty heartless for you to just assume that

[@CuthbertNibbles]

​@@crazyscienceguy9933something doesn't add up, Stephen honoured Scott and spoke highly of him, but refused to elaborate on the entirely preventable cause of Scott's death? That's the ideal teaching tool, a personal recollection of a real-world scenario where greed prevailed over safety and someone (recalled as an amazing person) died because of it. That is part of his legacy, and an absolutely critical lesson for anyone working with machinery, why would he leave that part out? The owners killed people for a profit, plain and simple, they must take accountability for their actions before any improvement can be made and from the sounds of it, Stephen wasn't doing that.

[@gregboileau1954]

Kinda wild that someone partly responsible for a preventable disaster would go on to teach about their profitable business that caused said disaster.

[@OAleathaO]

Although I'm sure the narrator (Sheldon Smith) could have handled it, I also sure he's glad they shortened methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl to mcmt. LOL

[@dscrd1]

and i think the first time he saw mcmt in full he was like 0_o

[@silentype3008]

"Methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl." "The fuck'd you call me?"

[@OAleathaO]

@@silentype3008 Right? As Yosemite Sam would have said: "Dem's fightin' words!!" lol

[@REXXSEVEN]

Lol

[@voutsider190]

Say that fast 3 times

[@brussell639]

It's really sad how simple and totally avoidable accidents like this are.

[@arnaudstral]

What would you have done ? Trying the cooling system before starting the reaction ? Or adding a security cooling system

[@Syclone0044]

The CSB post accident report is available in PDF online, I read the entire thing and found it quite interesting after seeing this video. It even has photos and diagrams of where major pieces of shrapnel blasted and landed, and the ranges of shockwave damage, etc.

[@noname-zg8lh]

The important takeaway here is that the government lets people build untested bombs and plant them right next to your home or office, then takes no responsibility when they - of course - explode. Killing innocent people who had no idea their government was letting complete idiots build bombs in their neighborhood.

[@64CSAR]

Good job owners, showing up boots on ground, tried to warned their employees. RIP

[@tashkiira7838]

They screwed it up by the numbers, but they were good bosses, apparently.

[@KaaneDragonShinobi]

They're the ones responsible for this accident by skimping on safety.

[@P1aceHo1derName]

@@KaaneDragonShinobi Hard to say, I doubt the owners designed the process/system maybe they could have hired a safety analyst or whatever but most of the blame lies on the incompetent design of the process which was very likely done by one of their employees or outsourced.

[@LT-mt5vu]

There should have had a emergency dump tank water tower, or emergency pump reservoir with a backup generator. Heck, all facilities, that might enter a critical state should power supply halt, need a generator.

[@davidjames1684]

"Move away from the reactor"... yeah like about 1/4 mile.

[@SDChick]

David James I was thinking more like the next county...

[@Phonixrmf]

SDChick next country. Just to be safe

[@CanyonF]

as soon as the ONLY COOLANT SYSTEM failed I would've bolted to me car and fled, hoping everyone else did the same thing

[@WadcaWymiaru]

If that was a reactor...where was the contaiment?

[@The-Cat]

@@WadcaWymiaru the second wall. basically there's 2 walls where the water cooling is pumped in, that's your basic containment.

[@PrimeObserver-1]

The investigation focused on cooling, but the real problem was how the reaction was performed. I am a retired chemical engineer with the equivalent of two masters degrees and 31 years industrial experience. In 1985, I hired Scott Gallagher and also worked with the other two principals. I live across the St. John's river from where T2 was located and retired at home, witnessed the explosion. I did not know what had exploded, and will not repeat what I said to my wife. I learned from a chemist 40+ years ago that you do not put reactants into a vessel, heat it and cross your fingers. The proper way to run this reaction is to fill the reactor up to the heating coils with product with the addition of one of the two reactants (in this case, sodium). Since the product has already been reacted, no further reaction takes place when the reactor is heated. The second reactant is then fed on temperature control. Example interlocks on both the digital and analog feed valves (the digital is for redundancy and absolute positive shut-off) include not being able to feed if: 1) the reactor temperature is too low (below "instantaneous" reaction temperature, therefore disallowing accumulation of the second reactant), 2) the reactor pressure is too high, 3) little or no agitation and of course, 4) high temperature. In this scenario, cooling water is needed for production, not for safety. Needless to say, I have supervised the running of many reactions of this sort using this approach. Unfortunately, Scott was transferred from the process engineering/piloting department under my management into the construction engineering side before he learned the proper way to run this type of reaction.

[@davelowets]

Then you should know better that ALL reactions, to get the end result that you want, DON'T always work that way..

[@TheTomBevis]

I learned about this accident from the excellent blog "In the Pipeline", by Derek Lowe. He has a section titled "How Not To Do It" that includes this incident. The "Things I Wont Work With" section is an informative and humorous view of dangerous chemicals that is well worth the read. And, being a pharma researcher, he gives a good view of the latest drug discoveries and pharma shenanigans.

[@jefflyon2020]

he also provides a link to a totally amazing and out-of-print autobiography that is worth reading. written by the fearless chemical plant owner Max Gergel, you will laugh,cry, and gasp at this guys balls of titanium.called "sir, could i interest you in buying a kilo of methyl iodide" and his sequel which i cannot recall the name.better than keith richards life story.

[@zapdereddit3526]

@@jefflyon2020 almost! It's 'isopropyl bromide' and here is the PDF for anyone interested library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/gergel_isopropyl_bromide.pdf

[@theshermantanker7043]

Gotta hand it to em, this is one of the rare few times on this channel a supervisor was willing to risk his life and ask his employees to evacuate before he does while he stayed behind trying to fix the issue

[@Astinsan]

It sounds like they scaled up without forethought of safety.

[@xXDESTINYMBXx]

Maybe they forgot that some elements don't scale linearly and failed to adapt to that.

[@stevenbaer9061]

going from 1 frigging liter to 2500 gallons in one fell swoop, bad move.

[@Astinsan]

@@xXDESTINYMBXx very true.. nuclear industry has had many problems with scale.. great example everyone can grasp about energy stored in common elements and chemicals.

[@noahater5785]

That’s what happens when you don’t convert from imperial to metric or vice versa, your measurements end up way bigger than you originally anticipated

[@samsngdevice5103]

IN OTHER WORDS they only knew enough to be DANGEROUS.

[@xxxggthyf]

I don't know how the law works in the US, and I've said this before on a few of these (very interesting) videos, but in the UK Health and Safety laws work on the basis of "should have known". If you know enough to be dangerous and do something dangerous then you are breaking the law regardless of whether or not anything dangerous actually happens. In a case like this the owners (assuming they survived) would have to show that the accident was caused by something nobody could have known which effectively means "act of god" in the legal not religious sense. Ignorance would not be an excuse as they either should have known or should have employed somebody who did know. If the reaction had suddenly produced highly explosive custard in a previously unknown reaction they'd be legally OK... Having an exothermic reaction runaway and not having a back-up method of cooling or dumping the reaction leading to a disaster shouldn't have come as surprise to chemical engineering graduates. I don't have a degree of any description and even I think this was a catastrophe waiting to happen.

[@Mikael5732]

@@xxxggthyf The U.K. has had its share of industrial accidents as have the rest of the world.

[@xxxggthyf]

@@Mikael5732 That is of course completely true but irrelevant to my point which is the apparent difference in the way the law works. Watching these excellent USCBS videos it seems that in the US ignorance is seen as an excuse in ways that it would not be in the UK. In some ways ignorance would be seen as an aggravating factor rather than an excuse. In so many of them it seems that "We didn't know it was dangerous" or "There was no specific law saying we couldn't do something dangerous" are accepted. In the UK the presumption is that you should have known something was dangerous and not done it.

[@ozi1621]

Thank you KZbin algorithm for recommending me this in 2020

[@sword115]

I do wonder why refineries and plants don't have warning sirens when they get in to trouble, they has to of been a point when they should ofrealised the Reactor was a lost cause they just couldn't see it.

[@frotttiopm8668]

+sword115 in germany they have. I am process engineer. If we would develope a reactor like this at t2, we would lose our jobs >.< ......no overpressure warning/alert, a small tiny overpressure valve (this valve must be able to blow out EVERY overpressure at emergency!) and a cooling system right from stone age....nice engineering! -.-

[@bradleywilson2377]

+sword115 That's just the thing. Plants DO have warning sirens, lights, horns, blips on your screen, all of it. At least, they are supposed to. I'm an operator at a petrochemical plant, and this is a clear cut case of ignorance of the chemical process, from owner to operator. Not only that, but as they scaled up the process, they should have re-examined their unit/equipment/safety redundancies EVERY time. But in fact there WERE no redundancies. They simply tried to get as much product as possible out of what they already had. That is not, and never has been, the process by which any plant should change and/or grow their process. The most crucial, initial mistake that was made was a lack of knowledge of the process, in great detail. Everything else was a domino effect built off of that, which led to conditions that were perfect for a catastrophic disaster, and I hope this can serve as a lesson and cautionary tale to anyone and everyone that is either in, or wants to be, in the petrochemical industry. All those dozens and dozens and dozens of hours of safety orientation and training they put all operators through - yes, it is there FOR a REASON. Be safe. Period.

[@psycronizer]

yes. I quite believe you...we had our plant built and designed by a German firm called NATEX....very professional and excellent control and attention to detail...this was a supercritical c02 extraction plant with 3 extractors running in parallel, 700 Barr was a nominal pressure, but, human error could happen and still bypass safeties, with the results of huge, titanium steel cylinder extractors looking just like a crush empty pop can...and the noise ! it happens in an instant...alswell then all of a sudden "ka-boooom!"..there was lots ways to die at that plant....

[@Backrooms1843]

psycronizer

[@texasdeeslinglead2401]

Every plant I go in has specific alarms /sirens , rally points , site specific training and every year the requirements get tighter .

[@bradleywilson2377]

That's just the thing. Plants DO have warning sirens, lights, horns, blips on your screen, all of it. At least, they are supposed to. I'm an operator at a petrochemical plant, and this is a clear cut case of ignorance of the chemical process, from owner to operator. Not only that, but as they scaled up the process, they should have re-examined their unit/equipment/safety redundancies EVERY time. But in fact there WERE no redundancies. They simply tried to get as much product as possible out of what they already had. That is not, and never has been, the process by which any plant should change and/or grow their process. The most crucial, initial mistake that was made was a lack of knowledge of the process, in great detail. Everything else was a domino effect built off of that, which led to conditions that were perfect for a catastrophic disaster, and I hope this can serve as a lesson and cautionary tale to anyone and everyone that is either in, or wants to be, in the petrochemical industry. All those dozens and dozens and dozens of hours of safety orientation and training they put all operators through - yes, it is there FOR a REASON. Be safe. Period.

[@tetrabromobisphenol]

It's really the fault of the county and state that don't have any kind of rigorous safety review. This is what happens in "business friendly" jurisdictions.

[@ianmoseley9910]

I suspect the owners were chemists rather than chemical engineers - still thought in terms of the laboratory rather than industrial processes

[@anzaca1]

6:10 Often with exothermic reactions, as you scale up the amounts of the reactants, the thermal energy released by the reaction increases exponentially.

[@dakota9821]

The cooling also scales down the same way.

[@ddobry21]

This video made me feel like I was at work taking an MSDS course. I almost started taking notes lol

[@benjaminbeltrancastillo819]

This terrible tragedy was due to the lack knowledge of the process, of chemical reaction engineering, heat transfer, and control. The process, the chemical reaction involved in this terrible accident depends on sodium as a reagent which is a high reactivity precursor, which is not well recommended (this decision would imply a very well designed control system, with all safety measurements considered, and emergency procedures established). They could try another path to find the desired product using another precursor with sodium to make this process safer. The second important point, it is essential to know if the reaction the reactor is dealing with is, either exothermic or endothermic, in order to define the heat transfer system for the reactor. The heat transfer proposal for this particular reactor it is poorly designed. Removing heat with water at those temperatures implies a constant flow of water in the reactors jacket due to its boiling point. Finally, the process control system, is controlled by an operator, which expose the process to a human error. Considering the amount of heat caused by a high exothermic reaction, an emergency procedure should be predefined, considering all the necessary measures in order to never lose control of the temperature in the reactor, adding another feed line of cooling water to the reactors jacket in case the other one fails. Pressure sensors together with a pressure release system, to mention one We believe the key point in this tragedy is precisely the heat transfer system. But more important yet, the engineering behind this tragedy is outrageous, this process and every other should be designed with awareness by qualified personal. This commentary was done by the students of the class of Chemical Reaction Engineering of the Chemical Engineering underdegree program in Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, in Mexico. Guadalupe Casados, Leticia Camilo, Benjamín Beltrán, María Hernández, Luz Arias, Uriel Pérez, Suzette Flores, Ana Montemayor, Fernando Maciel, Javier Castillo, Juan Martínez, Erick Acevedo.

[@singlepayer]

Scaling up the volume actually makes it more difficult to cool as the surface area to volume ratio decreases

[@Mikael5732]

Yes. I would have thought the coolant jacket around the reation chamber would have been 10 times the thickness with large circulation pumps pumping into a 10k gallon coolant reservoir tank.

[@xdarkknightx09]

How do you design a reactor like that, with only a single cooling system preventing it from overheating? Also, how were there no alarm systems, alerting the crew and the nearby civilians to evacuate once the cooling system failed. Layman here, seems like common sense to me. It's amazing how badly things seem to be designed in this industry. In every other fied that uses explosive materials, you find redundancy after redundancy to stop things like this from happening. Nah, lets just build a self sustaining reactor that only has a single system stopping it from becoming a bomb. Yeah what could go wrong, that water pump won't ever fail.

[@ssaauull111]

There are several wrongs about the process itself, and due to bad design and bad scaling, this process from the beginning was meant to be a catastrophe. First of all, the whole process was not automated, the operator was the one to activate the cooling system by simply observing temperature increase, it is safer if the process it is automated, at least that way you can minimize the risk of human error. Also, it is necessary to know the chemical reaction, it was extremely exothermic, so to be aware of the hazards that entails it is a must, a thoroughly study in kinetics and thermodynamics of the reaction would have been a good mean to avoid this catastrophe. They should have had more than one line for the cooling system in case of failure like in this case, though the cooling system apparently was controlling the temperature of the reactor, it was inefficient, they should have use one with a recycling system, introducing a heat exchanger, that way you could decrease the water flow and also avoid corrosion problems inside the cooling jacket because of the water vaporization. And finally the relief system of pressure was not adequate for the reactor, it would have been a good idea to have more than one relief line. This review was made by Students of Chemical Engineering program of the class of Chemical Reaction Engineering, of Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo, in Monterrey, Mexico. Saúl O. Andrea G. Lesly A. John G. Jordan G. Santiago G. Eduardo P. Ana G.

[@ianmoseley9910]

Saul Ortiz Rdz Venting hydrogen to the atmosphere was not entirely safe - pipe it to power a generator

[@mathewcherrystone9479]

@@ianmoseley9910 The whole process was very inefficient. Hydrogen also is needed in many processes and could be sold of. The heat from the reaction could be used in a small generator or to heat nearby homes. Or they could get rid of the heating element by having two reactors and the heat from the one reactor is used to heat um the other one. This would also get rid of many of the scaling problems and would have made cooling far easier.

[@Mirage2000H]

Good review, but you forgot one more problem when using a cooling system as was used in this case - the formation of scale. They've used city water which just boiled off, leading to the formation of ever-growing scale deposits, rapidly decreasing heat transfer. I highly doubt they ever cleaned the jacket with some acidic solution. I haven't read the full report, but sooner or later that uncontrolled scale would have (or maybe even did) lead to control valve stiction and hydraulic blockage of the jacket and/or steam vent.

[@mathewcherrystone9479]

@@Mirage2000H Oh yes I thought about that while watching the video, but forgot to mention it. Thanks for adding this.

[@Mirage2000H]

@@mathewcherrystone9479 you're most welcome! On a side note, I had some experience working for a big pharmaceutical company on the research of candidate dangerous reactions during manufacture of APIs. That data was used to improve the safety of the plants by implementing emergency procedures and/or modifying the equipment or reaction conditions. We would lead reactions purposefully to a runaway in a small reactor which would be best described as a bomb calorimeter. Those were fun times! However cleaning the reactor afterwards, not so much often times haha.

[@icantdanceicantsing]

Quoted directly from T2's archived website from a few days before the explosion: "T2 Labs is now manufacturing Ecotane® at its state-of-the-art facility in Jacksonville, FL using a novel, safe, and efficient" Emphasis on safe.

[@utah133]

With cooling so critical, I'd have a complete redundancy, maybe even a water tower. I work where a large reactive process will be used.. There's a complete way to dump/stop it at any time designed in. A separate triple redundant control system automatically scrams the process if things start to go south. Lessons learned being applied.

[@ChimpFromSpace]

But those things cost money, you see. Can't have that, boss needs his second vacation home.

[@bishop1029]

gunfuego it had the equivalent. its called a rupture disk. basically a metal disk set to rupture when the pressure reaches a certain point. its not a valve but the function is the same.

[@movax20h]

Active systems that control runaway / positive feedback reactions that failure could result in so big mess, should be at least tripple redundant and independent. So failure of two will not restrict you from cooling system fully as designed. This applies to cooling and pressure relife systems. Or instead build multiple smaller reactors instead that are easier to control. The water should be controlled and filtered, the each cooling system should have at least two pumps, and should have independent redundant emergency power systems (battery and generators), and additional fail safe system based purly on gravity from water tower. This system was absolutely terribly designed. Also scaling system in naive way is not just naive, it is super stupid. Volume and energy contained scales as qube of the base dimension. But the heat flux capacity scales as square of the base dimension (basically it is restricted by the surface area). So, even if small design works, if you simply scale the system, it will reach the point when it cannot be cooled. Simple math and dimensional analysis. The cooling system should be redundant and compleatly redesigned. This is just me speculating as a non engineer. But the are published standards how to safely design such reactors!!

[@coreyandnathanielchartier3749]

Regarding the need for emergency procedures and evacuation policies of the surrounding areas-The last thing a chemical company wants if for the general public (and local FD and PD) to know, is, how dangerous are the chemicals and processes they are using?

[@rondohunter8966]

I lived and worked in Jacksonville at that time. I was in my truck on the opposite side of the St. Johns River when the blast happened but I didn't see it, heard about it when they cut in on the radio. Had a colleague running that route so I immediately called him to see where he was. He had left that area about 15 minutes earlier. Everyone was surprised to know that a company like that was allowed to operate in that area. I dunno, but does a light industrial rating allow for chemical manufacturing? There are mainly warehouses in that area, nothing to be considered hazardous.

[@WilliamMcCormickJr]

For an example if you take a sphere with a diameter of 10 inches, and a sphere with a diameter of 100 inches. The ratio of spherical surface area to volume for the 100 inch sphere, will be 10 times less then the smaller sphere. That is significant when discussing thermal chemical reactions.

[@scowell]

Wow! You've discovered a new law of geometry! Surface of sphere = 4piR^2.... volume of sphere = 4/3piR^3. Ratio for 10" sphere = (4pi25)/(4/3 pi 125) = 0.6. Ratio for 100" sphere = (4pi250)/(4/3pi 1250) = 0.6. Apply for your Nobel now!

[@whiskeyfur]

Math is a bit off there but the general idea is correct.

[@WilliamMcCormickJr]

@@scowell Check your math. The formula for the surface area of a sphere is Diameter times Diameter, times π The formula for the volume of a sphere is Diameter, times Diameter times Diamter, times π ÷ 6 A ten-inch sphere has a surface area of 314.1592653589793 A ten-inch sphere has a volume of 523.5987755982989 That is a ratio of 0.6 A one hundred inch sphere has a surface area of 3141.592653589793 A one hundred inch sphere has a volume of 523598.7755982988 That is a ratio of 0.06 You were just off by a magnitude of 10; it happens due to the poor math practices of new. A cube follows the same ratio. However, for runaway reactions, the formula for the theoretical sphere within the cube has to be observed because the heat will be trapped at the limited surface area of the theoretical sphere, and not benefit from the cooling surface area of the cubical tank or containment.

[@WilliamMcCormickJr]

@@whiskeyfur, Scowell is off by a magnitude of 10. I just posted a breakdown of a ten-inch sphere versus a 100-inch sphere. It is clear the ratio of surface area to volume ratio between the 10" and 100" sphere is ten times more surface area to volume on the smaller sphere. Sincerely, William McCormick

[@digester2427]

Safety measures and departments are always the first things to be cut or reduced when production goals are pushed beyond operational and established safety limits.

[@K3NnY_G]

First off, what a gem that's been hiding here on YT all these years, just all this content. But man as I've been watching these I realize it's the people who do this work that have really allowed humanity to move forward into the modern age where we do such crazy things at such grand scales, or that some things are just more common place, happen every day, and worst case stuff like this rarely happens. Also the bit about reactive runaway control education being recommended for being added to collage level curriculum, that's just one of the things that is a stepping stone to an industry moving forward bit by bit, humanity learning from their mistakes. Just really cool stuff I never realized and really respect these people for, it's so comprehensive on all fronts, I love it.

[@halonothing1]

I'm not even an engineer and I can see the water cooled jacket is insufficient when scaled up. A spherical container with 1 liter of volume will have a surface area in contact with the cooling jacket of 4.8m^2. But if you scale it up by 300x with a 300 liter reaction vessel, the surface area will be 216m^2. So for a 300x increase in volume, you only get an increase of 45x in the size of the cooling jacket. So the efficiency of the cooling sysem is going to drop off very fast as you increase the size of the reactor. They should have used something with grid fins or rods that actually go into the reactor vessel to draw heat out from the center.

[@johnharrison2466]

I went by this plant a few days after it happened looked like an atomic bomb went off

[@j.m.74]

+John Harrison Your comment may not be too far off the mark. In the bit of grainy security footage they showed, it looked (to me) like the explosion was beginning to form a mini mushroom cloud.

[@michaelsabedra1]

stop your lying you don't even remotely know where this took place and you would not have been able to drive anywhere near it especially a few days after. they would have restricted access except for investigative personel such as calosha. so please no need to lie and give false witnessing of carnage. the video clearly shows that without the need for lies. mkay

[@rylewoodson7665]

michael sabedra you are wrong sir!! I worked at JEA SJRPP and we were allowed to drive down Faye Rd and New Berlin Rd entrances to the plant. We had to clean up a cooling Tower from our parking lot that flew almost 2 football fields away from T2.

[@tylergarza8695]

@@michaelsabedra1 jesus, someone's a bit of an ignorant cock aren't we?

[@jeromeduffy9270]

@@tylergarza8695 yah

[@jchi1ds]

Either the operators failed to conduct a hazard analysis of the reactor (i.e. 'what if the cooling system fails?') or else they mistakenly relied on an undersized relief system. Reactors are not like steam boilers. When a boiler relief valve blows, pressure usually drops immediately because heat is entering the system at a constant rate from the burner. In a reactor fully charged with reactant, the rate of heat generation can increase exponentially if the reaction rate is temperature and/or pressure dependent. In that case the vent cross sectional area must be large indeed to be effective. The best remedy is to have an emergency means to interrupt the reaction, like with a dump valve and drown tank if possible. I wonder if they could have opened the valve that led 'to distillation' to effect this.

[@zrspangle]

Further, using water to cool a reaction involving both sodium metal and hydrogen, just sounds like a terrible idea

[@Cannabinova]

@@zrspangle City water at that, which amounts to water from the aquifer. Loaded with minerals and metals, perfect for clogging up a cooling system.

[@OhmMyGod1]

@@Cannabinova Precisely. I'll bet that primitive cooling system was never maintained. The municipal water in Jacksonville is considered extremely hard. The system was likely covered completely with thick mineral scale, inhibiting heat transfer and finally rendering the inlet valve inoperable. That explosion obliterated any evidence unfortunately. Totally inadequate design...

[@samuels1123]

@@OhmMyGod1 they should've checked for mineral debris or stuff in the pipe debris

[@durshurrikun150]

@@zrspangle The sodium was isolated from the water, though.

[@jamesanderton344]

One of the best produced and edited safety videos I’ve ever seen. Wish the FAA could see this.

[@bramhickey8554]

I feel like the biggest problem with this was that the emergency pressure relief activated and the vessel still exploded, makes me think the relief passage was too small

[@leehuff2330]

As a volunteer firefighter, I find these videos very interesting and informative. Keep posting.

[@truckcamper5751]

Wow OSHA could have a field day at this place🤔

[@CanyonF]

"well the entire facility is rubble so i'd say you don't pass the safety check"

[@Crosshair84]

OSHA is rarely competent enough to understand actual dangers in an industrial environment. They'll complain about leaving a cleaning cart in front of a breaker box and walk past the large vats of reactive chemicals.

[@RichSPK]

If they had the staff...

[@yaboikungpowfuckfinger7697]

By far the best way to teach people about safety, these videos are very interesting and educational.

[@mh-ki2dv]

Who would win? A literal building named after a lab, probably handling chemicals all day. One sparky boi

[@jordansoflylogs8526]

0:33 brotha got the hell out of Dodge

[@renneedwards9826]

Jordan Sim Vlogs ...LMFAOOO! Yup! I would too. 😥😂

[@maxonwolf5841]

god damn I remember hearing the loud explosion

[@Coastie1548]

yeah! it scared the shit outta me! I still have PTSD from the T2 explosion.

[@japeking1]

9.00 pm, one summer night long ago, working the late shift in a chemical process lab I heard a strange distant roaring sound. One of the old hands looked up and said " Bloody hell, the North Koreans must have won." So, how old am I ?

[@zrspangle]

@@japeking1 I'd imagine late 70s or early 80s.

[@japeking1]

@@zrspangle I was a student... it was a "holiday" job so I'm a decade younger than your estimate. Doesn't feel like it though.... my wife and I both feel quite disappointed to wake up each morning....."Another bloody day to drag ourselves through."

[@applied.precision]

The most impressive thing in this video is that dude pronouncing the chemical name flawlessly.

[@FruitMuff1n]

First off, I've binged all of your videos, these are great! It's like those Discovery channel documentaries but without any of the forced/contrived drama, just purely factual. Second, that CCTV video is incredible. I thought it was stock footage of a nuclear blast until the screen said "CCTV Video". Wow.

[@dickfitswell3437]

I am a fuel treatment operator and the company I work for uses similar products to treat fuel. This gas additive they made is extremely nasty to the human body.

[@Intrafacial86]

No one: Hot hydrogen gas: "skibbity bop mmm dada"

[@Oheeeoh]

Chernobyl guys: The RBMK reactor design is inherently unsafe T2 guys: Hold my beer

[@liam3284]

scary lack of oversight, thanks for publishing this.

[@1800cc-Dead-Meat]

Facilities like these should not be allowed to operate except in specific zones away from other business and facilities. The city in FLA that allowed this type of chemical manufacturer to operate in this location bears some of the responsibility for any injuries or damage in the surrounding area. At the very least area residents and businesses should have been made aware of what was going on there so they could decide if they where willing to accept the risk. I venture to guess that most around there had no ideal of the potential risk so close by.

[@KrK007]

Wow. It should have been obvious to them that if the cooling system malfunctioned they were in deep trouble. Bad design, no backups.

[@georgepezold7110]

Learning about T2 for my college class...my professor was a consultant for the company in 2005

[@bluejedi723]

love these videos, would love some more. Love how you guys jump right to the point without any fluff/filler.

[@WilliamMcCormickJr]

I have found that most scientists today are no longer aware of a basic principle that was part of the basic building blocks, of Universal Science. It is the Surface area to Volume ratio that exists between a small sphere and a large sphere. Where ever you have a material, that has a potential spherical shape within whatever container or tank shape it may be reacting in, that spherical shape must be the basis of your calculations for heat dissipation. A small sphere has a larger surface area to volume ratio than does a larger sphere have. That means as a potential sphere gets larger, the volume of reacting material in the volume is too great to pass heat generated through the small surface area of the potential spherical shape in any tank. As the sphere gets larger there is more heat generated in the volume and less surface area to dissipate it. This is also the reason why single cell organisms cannot get larger than they do. As a living cell gets larger it needs more food and creates more waste in its volume. Yet the cell membrane is now much smaller in ratio to the volume. So the cell dies of starvation and drowns in its own excrement. If you look at the formula for a spheres surface area Pi D^2 and the formula for a spheres volume Pi D^3 / 6 you will see that a small sphere has a much greater surface area to volume ratio then does a larger sphere. Meaning no matter the cooling equipment at some point there is just no way for the material to pass the heat through the imaginary spherical shapes surface area, contained in the tank of whatever shape. These principle were at one time part of the understanding of the actual atom that is no longer taught in public schools. It is no longer taught because the government defunded any school that continued to teach these principles, as well as the atom and electricity properly. They can save lives.

[@WilliamMcCormickJr]

The cooling system is usually calculated in a cubical or cylindrical manner, not a spherical manner. So although cubically they are prepared, they are not prepared spherically. As thermal imaging cameras become more readily available this can be investigated more easily. However just knowing the principle, and placing thermocouples in key positions they could easily demonstrate the point I am making. Imagine dipping 100 watt round light bulbs into a narrow tank of oil, and lighting them. A tank small enough, that the bulbs are just about touching the edges of the tank. Then taking temperature readings in and around the bulbs. Although right at the tank wall, the heat could be dissipated easily. You would find that where the bulbs were touching each other. there would be tremendous heat. Even though all oil in the tank had a chance to cool. Now imagine when rubber or plastic are reacting, even the area around the imaginary spherical shapes are also supplying heat to that imaginary spherical boundary that is to small in surface area to dissipate the heat created in the volume of the imaginary spherical shape. The result is that the reactions go wild. Really good chemists have figured it out. However it is also the principle behind atomic weapons, so you never see it published. It has to do with the core of the explosive expanding in a spherical or hemispherical pressure wave, that has a diminishing surface area in ratio to the volume. The explosive force and effects are maintained, or sustained, for a longer period than a much smaller explosive. You can also use standard commercial substances to create similar effects in quantity. "There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness." George Washington. Sincerely, William McCormick

[@WilliamMcCormickJr]

Jess Vagnar This surface area and volume of a sphere ratio, is what they did not understand in China, about the recent acetylene accident. The accident involving wetted calcium carbide. Years ago a ten man team of Green Berets were taught how to destroy a whole country using such common materials. If we were the unknowing recipients of a first strike and had no other method to strike back, these men could wipe out a whole country. The same effects can be created with naphtha or other hydrocarbons. It is no longer taught what you can do with acetylene or naphtha in rather small quantities. Out of ignorance and fear. Fear usually brings about the situation you are fearfully avoiding and covering up. It is the failure to understand the goodness in individuals and dwell upon what evil could be done if one had knowledge to do it that brings destruction. Sincerely, William McCormick

[@WilliamMcCormickJr]

Jess Vagnar "It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it." George Washington. We have been made ignorant by the decisions to use counterintelligence upon our own citizens to hide the atom, and the atomic bomb just after World War Two. Electricity, science, chemistry, math, history have all suffered perhaps a death blow because of the distortion of simple basics of learning. Sincerely, William McCormick

[@WilliamMcCormickJr]

I give you my word that as of 1973 it was illegal to teach the real atom and get Federal funding. You could lose your teaching certificates for teaching reality. After that the poor teachers excelled and were promoted. The good teachers were down in the dumps. I had two teachers start crying in class about changes in curriculum, from correct to incorrect.

[@WilliamMcCormickJr]

Jess Vagnar Atomic, nuclear, or conventional bomb, it is just an area too high in voltage to exist in the universe. God in his infinite wisdom to avert the whole universe from being consumed by a single explosive, disperses, the bomb core, the area that is extremely high in voltage. The active bomb core has an abundance of particles of electricity within and around the core. Because it is blocking ambient radiation (high velocity particles of electricity), from quickly invisibly passing right through the bomb and stabilizing the matter in the core. Ambient radiation slows as it approaches an active bomb core, before the explosion creating a bottle neck. That is why you can feel a bomb before it explodes. If you are close enough and looking at the bomb, you will feel a push from behind before the bombs physical shape changes. The ambient radiation is slowed to a velocity that repels much like gravity does. As the bomb detonates this effect reverses. So many people believe there are attraction forces. I can assure you there are no attraction forces in this universe. Just try to demonstrate attraction to a scientific proof of it. This was part of the counterintelligence initiative that was openly announced. Ambient radiation stabilizes all matter continuously, or matter would cease to exist. Matter would just disperse without being bombarded, pressurized trapped and contained by passing ambient radiation. Ambient radiation repels the particles of electricity in the single hydrogen atom into a spherical shape. The single hydrogen atom, is a sphere of particles of electricity, that is repelled into a spherical shape by ambient radiation passing by the hydrogen atom. That is how the atom used to be taught in America. The Siamese hydrogen molecule can with extreme heat, an ARC which can reach 35,000 degrees Fahrenheit, be split and it will cause atomic effects with the liberation of great heat. The power for atomic bombs does not come from the bomb, rather ambient radiation is the source of unlimited power. A bomb is very much like the sail of a sail boat, and the ambient radiation very much like the wind that pushes the boat. The bomb is just a filter no matter the type of bomb. Our universe is only an electrical effect an illusion. Matter is 90 percent space. No two sub-matter particles have ever touched. No two atoms have ever touched. What we call an explosion, a loud shock wave from a car crash, is only particles coming very close to one another. No sub-matter particle has ever been destroyed. Matter is merely altering the velocity of ambient radiation from these rather shocking events. We perceive the particles that bring us information about an event however we do not see the event. Or even the particle the brings us the event. They have been filling students with false beliefs in our technology and the universe. Sincerely, William McCormick

[@heregulmithal7063]

Never go cheap on your reactor vessel. Redundant systems are the way to go.

[@weapea]

It should be laws that this kind of facilities is not allowed inside towns. These should be far from any city.

[@gaggle64]

I have never and likely will never work in any of these environments, but I am convinced one of these videos will teach me something that one day saves a life.

[@kc5hgv]

A very horrible accident. There is a document called a (MOC) Management Of Change. We cannot change anything in our process without this document and review with our Engineers examine the effects of the modifications pending. These were very smart people that ran that plant but proper procedures should been in place on making decisions to making changes without proper review using a MOC. I believe that the CSB was making that point.

[@bradleywilson2377]

+kc5hgv Glad you brought that up. That document is one we (in the petrochemical industry) use all the time, when we have a change that will affect anything related to our process in any way. The CSB did indeed make that point. We will never know, but this step, if carried out properly, may have allowed someone there to recognize something abnormal that may have grown into a problem. I have no doubt that everyone that was involved had no malicious intent, but it is apparent that even an MOC in this case may not have prevented this catastrophic tragedy.&#160;&#160; Personally, I never sign one until I have read the attached documentation, and any other materials attached, and had my questions answered by the issuing supervisor/manager/trainer. Sometimes you'll see operators glance at it, sign it, and that's that. Besides all that even, this tragedy would still have been likely given the culture of process education in the unit (according to the CSB's investigation). Many of them were ignorant of the chemical reaction. I feel that all I need to do here is quote from the video Dennis Hendershot (Process Safety Consultant): "The most important thing to managing reactive chemistry hazards, is that you have to have a thorough and complete understanding of your chemistry under design conditions, and also under all foreseeable abnormal conditions."....ALL FORESEEABLE ABNORMAL CONDITIONS! Don't cross your fingers and say 'we'll be good!'

[@kc5hgv]

A very good point indeed.

[@WaterCrane]

I think the other problem was with how they designed the prototype using a 1-litre drum. Due to its small size, the similarly-scaled water-cooling jacket was more than enough to remove heat, so basic logic would dictate that everything should work fine if all components are scaled up to the full 2500-gallon size (I hate imperial units!). This is unfortunately flawed logic, because when you double the dimensions of something, the surface area increases by a factor of 4, but the volume increases by a factor of 8. In this design, the volume of chemicals is what's responsible for generating the exothermic reaction, and it's the surface area that's responsible for heat removal. There comes a point in the scaling where the cooling system is simply inadequate for the job at hand, and it was already running at a relatively unsafe temperature even before the water jacket failed.

[@OrbitalSaucer]

That's part of it. The concept of heat dissipation also applies inside the reaction mixture, not just at the cooling jacket. Larger reaction masses can heat or otherwise induce reaction feedback in themselves to a degree not seen on small scale. This runaway point is known as a critical mass in nuclear chemistry and works exactly the same way.

[@josemoreno3334]

Good way to learn about these kind of chemical plants. When i see one, I kind of know how they work. Thanks CSB, Grate videos, Can't stop watching them.

[@davesneiditch]

The safety of lab to full production scale-up can be greatly enhanced by process calorimetry. Once the heat of reaction and specific heat of the reaction is fully characterized the design of cooling systems and safety backup can be successfully done.

[@scottfirman]

Hearing some guy saying the supposed idiots running the operation didnt know that something like that would happen tells me the education system concerning chemical reactions totally failed. No sir, I disagree, those men knew that was nothing more than a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Common sence as to having a secondary emergency cooling system in place, Questioning batch size, improper relief systems, that whole rig was a bomb. When interviewed gor the job, and shown the operation, I would have turned down a job at that facility. Life is worth more than that.

[@ianmoseley9910]

RC Hobbyist Extreme Educated as chemists not chemical engineers - did not understand scaling

[@MsSomeonenew]

When your critical systems don't have a backup...

[@cvdheyden]

While I was studying chemistry, we had guided tours of Hoechst. We visited the "Technikum," a building that housed the "scale-up" team who tested reactions for production. They presented us with documentation of an accident where a 20-liter reactor was propelled into the air due to an incorrectly calculated exothermic reaction. Maximum cooling was applied, but they were unable to control the temperature. Therefore, the reaction was put into a "pipe" in a constant flow status, with pipes that were 1 inch in diameter. I was impressed by how a simple reaction in the lab could require extensive engineering to put it into large-scale production.

[@riccardorampini9266]

If I get rich I will hire the narrator to tell me a story before sleeping. I love his voice. Btw this channel is really interesting.

[@psycronizer]

without going down and reading other comments, I bet everyone with half a brain at least is screaming "where's the fuckin backup coolant system!" where's the autodump for dropping the reactor contents into a quench pit? this should have been there AND it should have been automated.WHY WHY did the authorities who oversaw the standard operating procedures not insist on getting this in place before even commissioning the plant! what the fuck? obviously there's a lot of weak spines in certain GOVT departments there...unforgiveable,unnacceptable!

[@bradleywilson2377]

+psycronizer Could not agree more. Any time there is an upscaling of volume/productivity/output, all possible abnormal conditions or upsets, not matter how small the possibility, are to be considered. This was not done in this case. Add to that the fact that practically no one at that unit had a full and fluent understanding of the chemical process taking place in their OWN unit (from owner to operator), and it's no wonder something like this happened.

[@itsfatal0]

if you know what truly happens, it happened within seconds I've been through 3 runaways.

[@psycronizer]

and venting hydrogen...can you imagine just how much extra hydrogen would have been in that reactor? under pressure? and dissolved in the water? no wonder that thing went of like a mini nuke..I find it hard to believe this happened in such a late time period..this was the era of safety gone mad and yet it still happened..owners greed? or stupidity, wrecklessness? take your pick! I bet the guy who designed the plant feels really good....

[@JustinKoenigSilica]

psycronizer I think the reaction was anhydrous

[@tetrabromobisphenol]

The hydrogen isn't what contributed to most of the bang, it was a BLEVE of the boiling cyclopentadiene.

[@Quacks0]

Yeah. no kidding. I would also ask why they didn't save the hydrogen to use as fuel or something.

[@gorillaau]

@@Quacks0 probably would have cost more to pump and compress it into tanks that what it's worth.

[@Quacks0]

@@gorillaau Maybe... it's just that when it is venting continuously for months or even years, there must be a lot of it that could be salvaged

[@louisvilleslugger3979]

Thank you for this one!

[@999a0s]

i find it really "interesting" that the one method they had of controlling the heat / pressure generated by the exothermic reaction was an active process of water cooling that required manual intervention...in other words, making it a fail-deadly system, with a single point of failure, with no plan B. uhhhh....sounds safe

[@vincentgizdich2842]

I'd imagine that water jacket was really crusty working that way

[@tashkiira7838]

Probably the source of the failure. But there likely wasn't enough left to make an actual ruling.

[@JohnDoe-zh6cp]

Using unfiltered city water ✅ Intermittently filling the jacket and then letting it sit ✅ No maintenance despite clear evidence of a fouled jacket or clog in the line ✅ Overloading the jacket’s cooling capabilities despite all of this ✅ In conclusion: Recipe for disaster ✅

[@rich4850]

Is it possible to build T2 Laboratories out in the country where there far enough away from the city where if there is an explosion it won't effect any near by business and there would be no fatalities or injuries from flying debris?

[@rocketraccoon1976]

That would violate a business owner's right to do whatever he wants on his own property. The property rights of business owners are more important than the lives of bystanders & the general public. Just ask West, Texas.

[@jmowreader9555]

As we saw in the West Fertilizer Plant explosion, building way out in the sticks is no guarantee of bystander safety. There's not a real estate agent in the world who doesn't see a flat piece of ground and think, "I need to put a hundred houses on it." This is why there are so many housing developments near airports..."screw the noise, I wanna get rich!"

[@Mostlyharmless1985]

Where they were was basically that. That entire area is just heavy industry and logistics.

[@johndoyle4723]

What a sad story. It is easy to be critical with hindsight, but in this case, even the most basic of HAZOP studies would have had big red flashing flags over the loss of coolant question, and required a huge redundancy in the design. The answer to the question of "Loss of coolant", is Major Catastrophe, and possible loss of life. The video seems to imply that the water supply was allowed to boil in the jacket to help cool, this seems hopelessly inadequate, don't even start on calcification fouling. There should as a minimum have been a recirculating cooling water system, at a sufficiently high Reynolds number for turbulence in the jacket, with duplicate recirc pumps. I would have installed a secondary internal cooling coil system with perhaps a gravity fed coolant from a buffer storage tank. Others have mentioned scaling up from a 1 litre lab flask. An exotherm in a 1 litre flask may well have not even be noticed. I could go on ,so much wrong, venting Hydrogen, protection from over pressure etc. Finally let me say I am a Chem Eng, and have personally suffered a runaway exotherm, no-one was injured fortunately, and we were completely exonerated in the investigation, as it was completely unpredictable. Very good video, and animation, thanks

[@shitongoogle1132]

"If... No, WHEN the fuel-bomb pressure cooker gets too hot, press the 'Not Blow Up' button to cool it off." "What happens if the cooling system breaks down?" "It blows up."

[@ROMSradio]

All these processes just look so inherently dangerous

[@Duncan_Idaho_Potato]

Simple solution: designers of these devices should be required to live within 10 feet of their creations along with their friends and family. Things like this would NEVER happen. There would be fully independent primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary safety measures and a deafening warning klaxon that sounded the MILLISECOND any ONE of them malfunctioned even slightly. Unfortunately, none of the people responsible, or their families, were killed or maimed in this incident.

[@DallasHerrmann]

The co-owners were both on-site, working on the problem. At least one of them died.

[@KiloByte69]

One of the owners was killed in the explosion, you dumbfuck. Did you even watch the video?

[@Syclone0044]

It stated the co-owner was killed inside the control room during the blast.

[@julieannbrady]

I had worked previously at SCM Glidco Organics with R. Scott Gallagher and Charles Bolchoz. They were two of the four killed in the T2 Labs explosion. Such a sad day. RIP.

[@renj6531]

This is similar to bhopal When the water contaminated the mic in the storage tank due to them not blocking the pipe with a slit the chemicals boiled although there was no explosion the vapors escaped and being heavier than air settled towards the ground and unfortunately the wind direction caried it towards the town